They both looked at him.
‘George Ivanovsky told me. But we need to back up. Why didn’t Valentine Waits do anything about you sending that emergency message, seeing as his two boys went to prison as a result?’
Eckert smiled, the same malicious smile he’d used on Evan earlier.
‘I have an insurance policy. I kept details of every flight I made for him. He’s been investigated before. This would tip the balance against him. It’s in a safe deposit box, to be made available to the police in the event of my death. He knows I won’t use it while I’m alive because it implicates me as much as him.’
He spread his hands wide. Simple.
‘Tell me what happened to Jake.’
‘I told you already,’ Eckert said. ‘He’s in the wind. He went to pieces, understandably. Started drinking heavily. He blamed himself for Kristina’s death. Then, one day, he wasn’t around anymore. Drank himself to death in some shithole down in Mexico, most likely.’
‘And left his ten-year-old daughter behind?’
‘Maybe he couldn’t bear to look her in the eye.’
‘But you made up that bullshit story for her. The one about the car crash, the drunk driver.’
‘Perhaps that made it twice as bad. He didn’t see the blame and loathing in her eyes he felt he deserved. I wouldn’t want to live every day of my life wondering if today was the day my daughter found out the truth about why mommy’s not around anymore.’ He shook his head in exasperation. ‘I don’t know what else to say to you. You’ll have to ask . . .’
His mouth clamped shut.
‘Ask what? And don’t give me that I’m going to walk out of here crap.’
Eckert let out a long breath, the strain of reliving the trauma of twenty years earlier written all over his face.
‘I was going to say ask Eva. She knew Jake better than me. Maybe he told her what he was going to do, asked her to look after Lauren. I don’t know.’
There wasn’t any point pushing it further. Eckert was telling the truth. Apart from not saying what it was he was transporting for Valentine Waits, he’d been completely open.
Eckert stood up. ‘You got a cigarette, Spencer?’
Spencer pulled the packet from his pocket and threw it over. Eckert caught it and looked at Evan.
‘Now you know why I wouldn’t let Lauren fly that plane.’
Chapter 46
‘WHAT DID YOU HIT me with?’ Evan said, touching the sore spot on his head.
Spencer put his hand inside his coat and came out with a 9mm Smith & Wesson M&P pistol. Evan nodded like that made sense.
‘You always carry one of those around?’
Spencer surprised him by grinning.
‘I’m tempted to say it’s a Waits family tradition, but I don’t really want to be associated with that family given what’s happened recently.’
‘You mean Arturo?’
‘He was okay, poor guy.’
Evan glanced quickly at the front door, saw that it was firmly closed.
‘I wanted to ask you while he’s out of the room, did Eckert get a picture sent to him?’
The look in Spencer’s eyes made it clear he knew exactly the picture Evan was talking about.
‘Yeah. I saw it too. It’s shaken him up. He’s trying not to show it.’
‘Looks like your father misjudged everyone. Instead of shutting them up, suddenly they all want to talk.’
‘Even a worm will turn, eh?’
‘You’ve seen the photo. Who would do something like that?’
Spencer didn’t need to give it a moment’s thought.
‘It’s a man works for my father called Tomás.’ He tapped the side of his temple, twirled his finger. ‘There’s something not right with him here. He belongs in a cage. One without a feeding slot.’
Evan was instantly back in the old van with the handcuffs and a battered toolbox in the back. He tasted the greasy fabric of the van’s seats as his face was forced down into it, smelled the odors of human fear.
‘Does Tomás like to pull out fingernails?’
Spencer’s lip curled, his nose wrinkling.
‘Tomás likes to do lots of things. Pulling fingernails is one of them. You’ve had the pleasure of meeting him, have you?’
Evan told him about the incident in the mall parking lot and Levi’s narrow escape.
‘You were both very lucky. Sounds like Tomás and Henry. They’re like cockroaches. You see one, the other one’s not far away. Anyway, you don’t want to talk about them. You want to know about Lauren.’
‘She’s still alive, isn’t she?’
‘She was last time I saw her. That was about a month ago.’ His face clouded over and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Then he sucked a wet breath down into his lungs ‘I’ve lost all contact with her. I’m sure something’s happened to her.’
The pain and fear in his face were genuine. Evan had the means to alleviate his suffering with just a few words. This was the man Lauren had trusted for the past five years. He would trust him now.
‘We’ve heard from her in the last couple days.’
Then he told him about the plan to meet in Baltimore. It was a small act of kindness, but like a lot of well-intentioned actions, the consequences were far greater than anyone could have guessed.
‘Thank God.’
Spencer packed a lot of relief into those two words. There was such honest pleasure in his voice Evan had to smile, happy that, for the moment, his words had the effect he’d hoped.
The rest would come later.
‘Why did Lauren have to disappear?’ Evan asked.
‘Because my father would have killed her. He’s extremely vindictive and has very old-fashioned views on revenge. You know Garrett was killed shortly after he was released from prison?’
Evan nodded, saw where it was going now.
‘My father believes Lauren killed him. She found out what really happened to our mother—’
‘Who told her that?’
‘Eva Rivera. She had no choice. Lauren decided she was going to look into our mother’s death. She was going to find the drunk driver who killed her and . . . I don’t know what she was planning. I don’t think she really knew either. Something about cutting off his balls and making him eat them, that sort of thing. I didn’t take it too seriously. But she was obsessed with finding him. And that wasn’t going to happen.’
‘Because he didn’t exist.’
‘She was talking about going to the police, hiring a private investigator, whatever it took. Eva decided it was better if the truth came from her. She didn’t want her to have to go through the experience of the police treating her like an idiot when she started on about a fatal car crash that never happened. And then it would all come out anyway. Eva decided to skip the middle part.’
His words took Evan right back to when Sarah first disappeared. He knew exactly what it was like to be treated like an idiot because you dared to question what they were telling you. He’d never forget the look in their eyes, the mix of pity and irritation that you wouldn’t just go away. It was a good call to not put Lauren through it. Eva went up a fraction in his estimation, lying bitch or not.
‘How did she take it?’
Spencer snorted loudly as if Evan had asked how the bull reacted to the picador’s lance.
‘Badly. All that energy she was directing at finding the imaginary drunk driver didn’t dry up and blow away. No, it just got diverted. And got stronger. A drunk driver doesn’t set out to kill someone. He doesn’t care about the consequences of his selfishness, but at least he doesn’t mean to do it. Then suddenly the faceless drunk driver is gone and you’ve got two real people, men with a name she’s heard whispered, men who decided to murder our mother in cold blood . . .’
He took a deep breath, shook his head, little sequins of sweat popping out on his top lip. Hearing the religious fervor in his voice, seeing the deranged gleam in his eyes, you’d have thought he was descr
ibing his own feelings. It was easy to see what had united Spencer and Lauren over the past five years.
And the more Evan listened to the breathless excitement in his voice, the more a new, different way of looking at things gouged out a place for itself in Evan’s mind.
Had the hunted become the hunter? Had the real purpose of Lauren’s first email been the exact opposite of what it claimed to be? Not a warning to back off but a calculated ploy to set a plan she’d nurtured for five years in motion? Was he bait, about to lure her prey—Ira Waits—to a location of her choosing, one she knew Levi would also choose given a prod in the right direction, believing he’d thought of it himself?
Sitting here now with Spencer, recoiling at the stale cigarette smoke on his breath, he was suddenly very sorry he’d shared their plan with him. Was his role now to feed that information to his father? And then Valentine Waits would play his unwitting part, sending his son Ira like a lamb to the slaughter.
Spencer resumed his story, unaware of the doubts and questions his words had provoked.
‘She was consumed, obsessed with revenge. She told anyone who would listen that she was going to avenge her mother’s death. It became a question of when, not if.’
‘And when Garrett was killed—’
‘My father made up his mind it was her. He doesn’t need proof.’ He made it sound like something to be ashamed of. ‘That’s for lawyers and juries. Why would you need proof when you’re the prosecution, jury and hanging judge all rolled into one?’
You forgot executioner, Evan thought but kept to himself, as Ivanovsky’s words came back to him, his justification for doing what he’d done, for falsifying the autopsy report.
So that the same thing didn’t happen to her as happened to her mother
If Valentine Waits was prepared to throw a woman to her death as a means of punishing her husband, what might he do to another young woman he suspected of killing his son?
‘He’s also got a deep-seated hatred for Lauren. He blames her for our mother leaving him. She was pregnant with Lauren when she left him. It was what finally pushed her to go.’
Evan got out his phone, found the group photo. They both looked at it. Spencer pointed at his father, his finger shaking with barely-controlled anger.
‘Look at the way he’d got his arm around her. He knew what was going on. Lauren’s probably in that photo too. Right there.’ He jabbed his finger at Kristina’s still flat belly.
‘How come he’s in the photo if everyone hates him so much?’
‘I’m not sure. Something to do with Eckert. My father did business with him. Back then he was practically a legitimate businessman. The other stuff came later.’
Evan raised an eyebrow at him. Spencer shook his head. If Eckert wasn’t going to tell him what that stuff was, he wasn’t going to either.
‘You know he turned up at Lauren’s fake funeral, tried to talk to Levi?’
‘Wanted to take a look in the casket, I should think. He was suspicious. He knew Ivanovsky was her uncle.’
‘Why didn’t she at least let Levi know she was still alive? Hasn’t she got any idea what that did to him?’
‘Because he’d have wanted to see her. She was scared he’d lead them to her. And then he’d be in the same position except she’d be dead for real. This way . . .’
He froze, a nervous half-smile on his lips, as if he realized he was about to give too much away. The implication was as clear to Evan as if he’d said it anyway. The words this way implied there was another way, a way that didn’t end up with her dead. And the only way that would come to pass was if the men who wanted her dead were dead themselves. Or was he reading too much into everything? There was only one way to find out.
‘Did Lauren kill Garrett when he came out of prison?’
Spencer didn’t say anything for a long moment. He rubbed his jaw with his palm as his eyes held Evan’s, the scratch of bristles against rough flesh loud in the quiet of the room.
‘It doesn’t make any difference to me either way,’ Evan reassured him. ‘It won’t go any further.’
‘She—’
Suddenly the front door burst open with a loud crash, banging against the wall. Eckert tumbled in backwards, tripping, almost losing his footing in his panic to get into the room. He slammed the door shut, pressed himself into the wall behind it. He leaned across the door, slapping wildly at the light switch with the flat of his palm, plunging them into semi-darkness. Evan and Spencer came out of their seats as one, colliding clumsily in front of the fire.
‘Henry’s out front,’ Eckert hissed.
Spencer cursed under his breath, grabbed hold of Evan’s shoulder.
‘They’re looking for you. You have to go.’
Evan hesitated. Spencer’s words didn’t make sense. Why would they be looking for him? How did they know who he was? And then he remembered Arturo’s mutilated mouth with his business card sewn into his lips. They wanted to know what Arturo told him. And even the score while they were at it, after he left them licking their wounds in the mall parking lot.
‘Take this.’
Spencer thrust the Smith & Wesson into Evan’s hand.
‘What about you?’
Spencer picked up a heavy poker leaning against the stone fireplace, hefted it in his hands.
‘This’ll do. They won’t do anything to me. Not unless they find you here with me.’
Evan doubted that was true. By now Valentine Waits would have seen the photographs of Spencer and Lauren together, would see it as a betrayal.
‘Go! If Henry’s here, Tomás won’t be far away.’
He pushed Evan hard towards the stairs.
Then a gentle gust of wind and a faint squeak from the rarely-used back door in the kitchen told them all Tomás was a lot closer than they thought.
Chapter 47
EVAN LEAPT ACROSS the room as Spencer pressed himself into the wall to the left of the door to the kitchen. Keeping to the outside edges to minimize the risk of them creaking, he tiptoed up the stairs, acutely aware of the silence coming from the kitchen as Tomás crept equally stealthily across it.
He stepped carefully into the nearest bedroom. Both bedrooms were at the front of the house, their windows directly above the porch roof. He took another step into the room towards the window. A board creaked loudly. He froze like a mouse under a cat’s paw, held his breath.
Tomás stopped mid-stride when the board creaked, head cocked, listening intently. With his attention on the rooms above, he moved quickly into the living room, an Ithaca Mag-10 RoadBlocker shotgun leading the way. Spencer stepped away from the wall and brought the poker down onto the barrel, knocking it out of his hands. He swung again, a vicious, horizontal blow. It caught Tomás across the solar plexus, doubling him over with a sound like a tire blowout, a screeching whoosh of violently exhaled breath as his diaphragm went into spasm. Spencer kicked the shotgun across the room and brought the poker down on the back of Tomás’s shoulders, driving him to his knees.
Eckert flicked the lights on, took a couple of fast paces across the room and scooped up the shotgun. He jabbed Tomás hard in the chest with it, an unnecessary act Tomás would later remember. Tomás raised his head painfully, looked from one to the other.
‘Tomás!’ Spencer exclaimed. ‘What the fuck are you doing here, creeping around? You’re lucky I didn’t kill you.’
Tomás tried to push himself to his feet. Eckert jabbed again, keeping him off balance, on his knees. He should have known better with a man like Tomás. In his mind Tomás was already counting off fingernails.
‘Where is he?’ Tomás spat, the words jerking out of his mouth in a harsh staccato as he struggled to get any breath in or out.
Spencer and Eckert looked at each other like they didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.
‘Buckley. Where is he?’
Spencer shook his head—no idea what you’re talking about. Tomás looked around, his gaze settling on a bottle and th
ree glasses. At that exact moment Evan took another cautious step towards the window in the room above them. Tomás’s head jerked up, his eyes staring at the ceiling, mouth opening in a strangled shout.
‘Henry!’
Spencer swung the poker again, aiming at the side of Tomás’s head. Tomás saw it coming, threw himself sideways to the floor. The front door exploded open. Henry filled the doorway, a baseball bat in his hands.
Eckert spun around, the huge Ithaca pointed at Henry’s chest.
In the room above, the window squealed as Evan opened it. Then the sound of a foot placed cautiously on the porch roof. Henry heard it. He turned, pulling the door quickly shut behind him. He knew Eckert didn’t have the guts to blow a man away with a gun like that, not even through the door. He took a pace backwards, then down the porch steps. He looked up at the porch roof like a Grizzly bear contemplating a bag of food hung from a tree in a campsite.
What he saw instead was Evan’s face staring down at him, Spencer’s gun in his hand.
Henry was a big guy and it was a low porch, built when people were a lot shorter. His head was level with the bottom of the porch roof, perfectly positioned for a good kick. Evan jumped forward to the edge and obliged, kicked him hard in the face as he looked up. Henry’s head snapped backwards, blood and teeth spitting from his mouth. He staggered sideways, arms outstretched, the bat dropping from his hand. Evan leapt off the roof, feet hitting Henry’s chest. Two hundred pounds of muscle and bone knocked him flat on his back, breaking ribs, crushing the life and breath out of him. Henry’s head slammed into the rock-hard ground. He lifted it six inches and Evan flattened it again with Spencer’s Smith & Wesson until at last Henry’s eyes rolled up into their sockets and he lay still.
It sounded as if there was a riot going on inside the house. There was a noise like a tree falling on the roof. It was the Ithaca Mag-10 RoadBlocker. Then the door bulged outwards, all but ripped out of the frame. Evan didn’t hang around to find out who got shot and who did the shooting. Whoever it was on the wrong end of it got unblocked in a big way. He climbed off Henry’s chest and ran towards the dirt road and his car.
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